Book Review: We Were Liars

A beautiful and distinguished family.

A private island.

A brilliant, damaged girl; a passionate, political boy.

A group of four friends—the Liars—whose friendship turns destructive.

A revolution. An accident. A secret.

Lies upon lies.

True love.

The truth.

We Were Liars is a modern, sophisticated suspense novel from National Book Award finalist and Printz Award honoree E. Lockhart.

Read it.

And if anyone asks you how it ends, just LIE.

I’m actually surprised at all the hype for this book. While it had a huge twist at the end, everything before and after it was fairly boring. 

Cadence (Cady) was born into a life of privilege. She and her family spend their summers on a private island in Martha’s Vineyard. They’re the stereotypical rich, white people who have old money and think they’re better than everyone else. But behind closed doors, there’s a lot of bickering between parents, children, and siblings. Not everything is sunshine and roses. So, a group of four kids—cousins—the “Liars,” decide to take matters into their own hands. And everything backfires. ß Not a pun, I swear.

The only good thing about this book was the relationship between Gat and Cady, and maybe some of the imagery the prose offered; otherwise, the first 80% (up to the major twist) was completely pointless. But when that twist did happen, it was like a punch to the gut. I can see why this had such an emotional impact on readers, and perhaps that’s the reason behind the hype.

There were a few things I didn’t understand, questions that were left unanswered.

1.) Why didn’t Cady notice her hands and feet were burned? They should’ve been scarred from the fire. 2.) How did she hit her head? She talked about it at the beginning, when she remembered brief flashes of her memories from that night, but at the end, she never really said anything about how it happened. Or maybe I missed that somehow. 3.) Were the other three Liars ghosts or hallucinations? I have a feeling they might’ve been ghosts, because ghosts were actually mentioned here and there in the story. Plus, they had a weird exit if they were just hallucinations. And if Cady could still see them after she remembered what happened that fateful night, then I doubt they were figments of her imagination. 4.) How did nobody notice that Cady was by herself in that house for the majority of the summer? Did nobody notice that she talked to herself? I found that very odd.

 

Overall, if you enjoy contemporary with a hint of mystery and psychological aspects, then I’d recommend buying this.

**ARC courtesy of publisher via NetGalley

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